Try
by NeonZangetsu
Summary: Where there is desire there will always be a flame. Where there is a flame someone's bound to get burned. But just because you burn doesn't mean you're going to die. You've got to get up and try, and try and try. And no matter what he does she'll always try, try, try. NarutoxHinata! NaruxHina! Fluff, Action, Adventure.


**A/N: Aaaaand we have a continuaton, folks! what I am about to tell you is thus. This story is called Try, based on a song by the artist, Pink. Where there is desire there will always be a flame. Where there is a flame someone's bound to get burned. But just because you burn doesn't mean you're going to die. As you'll see, In the coming chapters...**

**...sometimes the burn is a good thing. Warning: Nudity and sexiness in this chapter! Its not quite rated M, but...**

_"Na-Naruto-kun?!"_

_~Hinata Hyuuga._

**Morning After**

The dull buzz of voices pulled Hinata out of the blackness. At first she heard the voices only as garbled nonsense, the rise and fall of pitch and timbre, not words. The stabs of pain in her ribs, head, and nose sharpened as her mind began to clear. Who? What? When? Where? When she remembered what had happened, she forced her eyes open and looked on dim surroundings. Strange. Wasn't it the afternoon. The sun overhead, cast only a slight glow, darkened by looming clouds. She tried focus through blurry vision. Her head throbbed with pain.

More words, something about pain, about understanding.

She was on the floor, sprawled across the dirt, left in the dust. So heavy. She wanted to move, needed to move, needed to go to him, needed to make him better...

"Know pain."

The onyx rod descended with a merciless swiftness. Then...

_Blackness._

* * *

Hyuuga Hinata woke with a start, flinging open bleary eyes, gummed by hours of restful slumber. Her heart pounded in her ears, the sound of a great war drum, out for her blood. Silken sheets sheathed her bare body alongside cold sweat, her head lay pressed upon a warm pillow. She looked up, around. Belatedly she recognized the cream-coloured walls and ceiling, the comforting colors of a place she knew all too well.

This was her room. She was safe and sound in the Hyuuga compound, her wounds healed, and Pain was not here.

The heiress heaved a sigh of infinite relief and willed at her hammering heart to slow, her labhoured breathing began to abate. A dream. It had been just that. A dream. An awful horrible, terrible, dream. Her head was still pounding, however; an incessant _thud-thud-thud_ revrberating in her ears. Wait. Wait a second. That wasn't her head. It couldn't be. The poundin did not cause her any pain. In fact, it was almost pleasant. Like the like of a...heartbeat. A human heartbeat. Hinata froze. Pillows didn't have heartbeats...and they didn't have a pulse...

"Nnnrgh...

They certainly didn't snore, either!

Slowly, dreading what she might fiind, the heiress dared to turn her head, dared to seek out the source of the sound. What she found there sent her heart-a-hammering. She found herself staring up into a visage she'd long since admired from afar, but never up close. Never this close! Her body went into autopilot on instinct, deflecting her panic, observing his every feature.

Baby-blue eyes were closed in slumber, whiskered cheeks dimpled in a sleepy, contented smile, bare chest rising and falling with the deep, easy breaths one could only know in the sweetest of dreams. Oh kami. Hinata suddenly realized where her nightie had gone; it lay draped at the foot of the bed like a badge of honour. She was suddeny, terribly, painfull aware of her own nakedness, of her body, spooned against him, of the awful painful soreness between her legs. She hazarded a glance down, dreading what she might find. Sure enough, there was blood upon the sheets.

Hinata took a deep breath and pinched herself.

_Hard._

When the Hyuuga heiress failed to wake, only then did her awe find itself smothered by more immediate embarassment. Oh kami. Oh dear, sweet kami! She was in bed with him! With her crush! With the boy she loved more than anyone else in the world! She'd slept with him! Worse, she couldn't remember how they'd gotten into bed together, in the first place! Her virginity was _gone,_ and all Hinata had to show for it was one gigantic blank spot in her memory. She wanted to die! For a young woman, there was nothing worse than failing to remember your first time. She clearly remembered bumping into Naruto three days ago, and then...nothing. It was one massive blur of sight of sound, from which she could extract nothing. And then panic set in. It wrested her from her seat of calm, dragging her back to the broken reality in which she dwelt.

Back to him.

Hinata took one look at her beloved and promptly passed out.

* * *

_(Sometime later)_

When she finally woke, the first thing she beheld was his face, once more. Her reaction was by no means less profound.

_"Na-Naruto-kun?!"_

Hinata clamped a hand over her mouth, swiftly stifling her gasp of exclamation. Her entire body flushed, a grand crimson color creeping, crawling, throughout her skin. She...no. This wasn't happening. This _couldn't_ be happening. She'd never dared to think, to hope, even in her wildest dreams, that such a thing would ever come to pass. And yet it had. But she couldn't bear it. She'd wanted this_-dreamt of it-_for so long, and now that she finally had it, she found herself at loss, _distraught _for what she had lost. Why couldn't she remember that night? If the memory was there it had been wiped clean; eviscerated by an unknown force.

Tenderly she stroked his cheek, smiling softly-sadly-as she rose from the mattress. She wanted to say something to him, anything to ease the ache in her heart, but she daren't wake him.

Stifling a snifle Hinata pulled herself out from the bed-from him-and began to wind her way out of the sheets. She could not bear to be seen; to let him see her like this. He'd think less of her for it. Some floozy of a girl who took the advantage of the "saviour" of Konoha. The irony was not lost on her. Here, she finally had what she wanted, and she couldn't even enjoy it. Biting back a sob, she reached for the bed sheets, taking off the bloodstained covers to be washed. For all she knew, Naruto-kun didn't even feel the same as she. He would wake to find himself in her room and she'd make up a excuse and they would continue on as they always had and she would continue to burn for him as she always had. But as luck would have it, the moment she reached for the sheets, the blonde decided to stir. Hinata froze, rooted in place as those sapphire orbs drifted open peering blearily into her lavender.

"Ohayo." He drawled in a soft voice that set her heart to racing and shattered her carefully made plans like so much glass. "Hinata-chan." There was confusion in his eyes as he yawned she could see it there, simmering beneath the surface, but the panic had yet to set in. It was a surreal, awkward moment for Hinata Hyuuga; she had one leg in the bed, the other out.

"Good morning." She whispered, clutching the sheets to herself, warring with the burning in her chest. "Naruto-kun." She watched those blue eyes widen at the affectionate suffix, sapphire orbs bulging so large she was certain they'd fall right out of his head. The genin propped himself upon an elbow, recognized his nakedness, balked.

"So...why the hell am I naked?!

Hinata flung herself out of the bed and scrabbled backwards like a drunken crab, desperately trying piece together what had happened to make this fantasy reality. She'd told Naruto she loved him. Yes, that'd had been before...three days ago, three days after she'd nearly died. One thing must've lead to another and then...oooh, this was too much! She turned for the door, turned to feel. only to feel a hand lock around her wrist. For a hairsbreadth, her heart ceased to beat.

"Hinata." His voice was softer than any pillow, his lips upon her ear.

Hinata swallowed and turned back to face him...

* * *

Naruto's mind was reeling as Hinata skittered backwards. For the love of kami! What had they done last night?! Despite this, some part of him saw the bloody sheets and inherently knew. Panic seized him; it sent his heart racing and stole his breath away like mist. He'd had sex. With Hinata. Not just Hinata, but the heiress of the Hyuuga clan! He had to do something, and he needed to soon. He couldn't remember exactly how he had gotten himself into the Hyuuga's bed, or her pants, for that matter, but he _did_ remember how incredibly harsh her overprotective father, Hiashi, could be.

If she made it to that door, his life was over.

Unbidden her words of three days ago came back to him; three days before, when he lay amidst the wreckage of Konoha, pierced by the rods of Pain.

_"I love you."_

Those words ran in his mind now. They gave him strength when he least expected it, empowering him to sit up. Hinata squeaked as the sheets fell from his torso, exposing his nakedness. Naruto ignored that, started across the room towards her with slow, tentative steps.

She took another step backward, skittish, and looked like she might bolt, though she had nowhere to go. She reached for the door. He lunged forward_-falling forward and off the bed-_caught her wrist with his hand, held her back a hairsbreadth too soon. He spun her around, forced her to face him. At his sudden motion she let out a little peep of fear, her face flaming. Naruto carefully ignored it carefully_-very carefully!-_forced himself to stare not at those glorious breasts pushing into his chest, but instead upon those lovely lavender eyes.

"Hinata." He spoke sotly.

She hemmed and hawed, shifting from foot to foot, unable to meet his gaze. Her face flamed a furiously.

"Don't faint." He begged. "Please don't faint."

* * *

"Please don't faint."

Hinata _burned_ beneath his gaze, flushing at the implications of his words. Did Naruto-kun have any idea...what he was asking of her? She'd already fainted once! It took everything she had just to stand here before him now and remain _concsious._ She was painfully aware of her breasts pushing on his chest, of his hands on her shoulders, holding her fast. Yet she daren't look away. The earnest look in his eyes drove her to distraction, it seared into her soul like a flame, leaving her warm and wanting. He stared at her for what felt like an eternity, and for the first time since she'd met him, she found the blond was, incredibly at a loss for words...

"You said you l-l-l-lo...

"L-Lo?"

...loved me." he became quiet as the grave and would say no more.

Hinata turned white as a ghost. She wanted to _die._ She wanted to die and go to heaven and be reincarnated as a worm and spend the rest of her days devouring dirt and forget this ever happened. The thought raced in and out of her head in an instant; the time it took for Naruto to finish his sentence.

"Did you mean it?"

There was a silence. Hinata fought the urge to tent her fingers for the upteenth tme.

...hai."

"Ha?" Naruto blinked. "I didn't hear you-

It was like flicking a switch.

_"Hai!"_ The words burst from Hinata's lips in a maddened rush of swift syllables. "I love you! I love you so much I could cry! I love you so much it makes me want to die!" She'd hoped to stop there, but the words kept coming and suddenly Hinata was a slave to her anger, her passion. "Honestly,do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to say that?! Since the day we met, that's how long! You give me strength! You give me courage! For the longest time I wanted to be just like you! Strong! Bold! Courageous! And then when I finally work up the nerve to confess my feelings to you, when I come to defend you and _no one else does,_ a psychotic shinobi nearly kills me just to make a point, just to piss you off! Do you have any idea how painful that was?! How much it _hurt_ for me to keep these feelings locked up for so long?! A damned lot!

"And to top it all off, you must've done _something_ right over the past three days, because apprently I'm not a virgin anymore! Do you understand?! I gave you my innocence for some reason despite the fact that I don't remember a damned thing about that night, and I expect you to take responsibilty for whatever you did! Do you understand? Do you, Naruto-kun?!"

Hinata's empassioned speech left her breathless, her courage exploding from her lips in one final retort, rocking the blond back on his heels. Phew! She gasped, shoulders sagging. It felt so...incredibly wonderful, to get that off her chest. She'd held that back for so long, bottled everything up in the hopes she could one day tell him how she truly felt. That hadn't been the way she'd intended to go about it, but at least it was finally free from her soul,

Naruto blinked, taken aback by her tirade.

"I...had no idea you felt away."

Hinata flushed, her blush returning with a vengeance. She really couldn't blame herself for tenting her fingers this time. Dear kami, she really was going to faint this tim. There was nothing she could do do stop, nothing at all; because the room was already swaying beneath her feet like a storm-tossed ship. She barely managed to sputter out one final sentence before she closed the distance between them.

"Well...now you do."

She flung herself at him, arms wrapping around his neck, body spooning against him, lips touching his for the briefest instant and then the last vestiges of her courage were gone; turning to steam between her ears. In that instant Hinata realized once more the full extent of her nakedness and just what was poking at her legs. _Kami!_ She felt herself fading, but then Naruto wrapped his arms around her back, the sudden touch sending sibiliant shivers shooting down her spine. She gasped as they fell back onto the bed and she into his lap, alarmed as he forecefully dragged her back from the brink of unconcsiousness. She squirmed restlessly in his lap a moment longer, uncertain of what to do. In the end, she needn't have bothered . Naruto did not grab or grope at her, instead he simply held her, arms wrapped tight around her waist, burying his head in the softness of her flesh.

"That was first time." He whispered, his voice thick with emotion. Hinata was alarmed to feel tears against the nape of her neck. He was...crying?

"Nani?"

"The first time anyone told me they loved me." There was a silence, then he continued. "Could you...could you say it again?"

His words were heartbreaking. They stirred something in Hinata; stoked a fire in her chest, fanned the flames of her courage into a roaring inferno.

"I love you, Naruto-kun." Hinata whispered, not trusting herself to raise her voice a single decibel louder. "I've always loved you."

"I can't say for sure whether or not I feel that way...but," and here his face broke out into a wide grin. "Thanks, Hinata-chan." His lips touched hers for the faintest instant and then he withdrew, reluctantly relinquishing his hold upon her. Hinata couldn't help herself; she squeaked! He'd kissed her! Her life was complete! Now if only she could remember that night they'd spend together...if only he would come to utter those three words she so desperately wanted to hear.

"We should probably get some clothes on, huh?"

Hinata burned once more. She...actually rather liked this, but she knew better than to push the blond.

"H-Hai!"

But no matter how much she burned...

...she would give him as much time as he needed.

**A/N: BWAH! What can I say? Hinata is so ddamned CUTE! My ears are burning from writng this, burning I tell you! Once again, this takes place directly after Pain's defeat. Consider this an offshoot of _Viper_ of what might've happened had Naruto not been an ass and actually heeded the Hyuuga-hime's feelings. NarutoxHinata, ladies and gentlemen! I sincerely hope you smiled as you read this ****as I did my best to keep our favourite Hyuuga in character. We'll see a bit of steel in her spine in this story, and I'm positive you'll enjoy the tale as our young couple struggles to discover just how th**

**Don't forget to review! Reviews are like wine to me, and wine is my inspiration! So in the immortal words of Atlas...**

**...review, would you kindly? I'll even provide a preview!**

**Preview:**

_Naruto stared across the table at the one man he feared more than the Hokage herself. Hiashi Hyuuga. Hinata's father. The man was glaring bloody pale daggers at him, arms folded carefully into his lap. Naruto tried to remind himself-convince himself-of the fact that Hiasha wouldn't harm him with Hinata in the room. The fact that said Clan Head had nearly Jyuukened him halfway across the villllage mere moments before did precious to assauge his fears._

_"So tell me, young man," Hiashi began, his face set in stone, his words harsh as flint.. "Just how do you intend to take responsibility for what you've done to my daughter?"_

_"Um..._

**R&R! =D**


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